THE DIRT SHEET THREAD: THE LATEST FROM MELTZER AND MORE - 12TH SEPTEMBER '19

File: 1568287601512.jpg -(91752B / 89.60KB, 475x700) Thumbnail displayed, click image for full size.The first few posts are from this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter. For the full newsletter and much more get a subscription at http://www.f4wonline.com/Dave Meltzer's star ratings will also be posted in this thread should there be any. Wrestling Observer Live airs Monday to Friday at 3pm EDT / 8pm BST and Sunday at 6pm EDT / 11pm BST in http://taima.tv/r/wooo2Use this thread to post news as it comes through. Do not use the old thread for anything new, try and move discussion to here instead.This thread will also contain links to the radio shows if they have been uploaded. Please don't clog up this thread with complaints about the uploads and / or demands for them. If you want the shows so badly and can't wait patiently for them, get a subscription.

> The deal actually first started with an attempt by Anthem to get Impact on AXS when they got word in the latter stages of 2018 that they weren’t going to be renewed by Pop TV. AXS turned down the initial deal, since Impact did not have a good reputation in the wrestling world at the time and AXS had its own wrestling franchise with New Japan. We first heard in December that talks were serious about Anthem buying AXS. Those in the industry have noted to us that with cord cutting and the emergence of alternative viewing options, there are more sellers than buyers when it comes to cable TV channels these days. While negotiations went slower than hoped for, they were completed with the idea Mark Cuban saw it as a good time to exit the genre, although he does retain an ownership percentage.

> What isn’t clear is the future of New Japan Pro Wrestling, which has been flagship programming on the station between Saturday night shows and daily replays, as well as Women of Wrestling, which also airs weekly. “Anthem has been public that it has not made any decisions regarding current programming,” said Ed Nordholm, Chief Corporate Officer of Anthem, who also is in charge of Impact. “We have been long-time broadcast partners with TV Asahi for NJPW at Fight Network and hope to build on that relationship. We are in the middle of a season with WOW and about to tape another series of episodes next week, so no reason to make any decisions there in the short term. We’re looking forward to getting to know them better.”

> New Japan Pro Wrestling got on AXS based on Adam Swift, the company’s former Vice President of Legal Affairs, who grew up as a big tape trader of Japanese wrestling. Swift, who was among the large number of AXS staff members who lost their jobs in the sale, saw the potential on U.S. television of something that normal people in television would have never even considered. Andrew Simon, the CEO of AXS TV Fights, greenlit Swift’s idea to bring New Japan to U.S. television. Simon was also let go this week.

> Week one ratings were strong and it became one of the most popular shows on the station, particularly with the live and same day coverage of the bigger events. Its audience increased each year at a time when most of cable, and in particularly pro wrestling on cable, dropped heavily.It was noted that this last quarter that ended in June marked the eighth straight quarter that New Japan’s audience was up ten percent or more (double digit increases) from the same quarter the previous year, more notable because it came at a time when AXS’ coverage fell from 54 million to 50 million homes. New Japan’s current contract with AXS expires in January 2021.

> Besides his job in legal, Swift doubled as the Executive Producer of the New Japan show and was instrumental in the changes to make the show more current, such as of late, the idea of airing the Saturday night events in Japan on a delayed same day basis. Swift assumed the position in late 2016 after the death of Executive Producer Darrell Ewalt, who handled all the live events on the station.

> The coverage has been a major key in the growth of interest in New Japan in the U.S. market. In addition, AXS, through Swift making a deal with Cary Silkin, probably kept ROH alive for several years prior to the Sinclair deal. They opened the door to New Japan touring the U.S., which never could have been successful at the level it’s been without it. The exposure helped turn people like Kenny Omega and The Young Bucks into bigger draws in the U.S. in 2017 and 2018, which opened the door for AEW forming. There’s little doubt that the history of modern non-WWE wrestling would be very different with no ROH, no New Japan on U.S. television, and no platform for the Young Bucks and Omega to become stars at the level they became, or their ability to run successful standalone show, and thus no AEW either.

> Some have argued this also led to the modern workrate incarnation of NXT, which formerly had a very different view on who could get over on television, with the idea that ROH and New Japan showing the growing appeal of workrate wrestling led to WWE trying to go heavily into that direction for the NXT brand, changing it from developmental to being competition to ROH when it’s business started growing. AXS was the backbone in helping finance another of smaller MMA promotions over the years in paying rights fees to do live MMA most Friday nights, and in particular of late with the Legacy Fighting Alliance.

> AXS had slightly more than 100 employees before the cuts and the number of those employees left is expected, depending on different info, range between 20 and 60. Most were let go immediately upon the word of Cuban selling with no options for people trying to negotiate deals to stay. The Wrap reported that the cuts were heaviest among those working on the fight shows, MMA and pro wrestling, as well as virtually the entire Dallas office, most of the Denver office and many in the Los Angeles office. New Japan was produced weekly out of the Los Angeles office or the Denver office. Although Swift was in the bloodletting, Bob Gold, a spokesperson for Anthem, told The Warp that almost all the senior executives will be kept, although a lot of hints have been going that may not be the case.

> With Anthem owning the station, it could lead to pressure for New Japan regarding relations with ROH, the company they are currently working with, or Impact, which has been wanting to work with New Japan for some time. New Japan has had no interest in working with Impact, even though Don Callis, the head of creative of Impact, has worked as an announcer for New Japan. New Japan and Impact have had problems stemming from the treatment of Kazuchika Okada when he was sent to Impact prior to his ascending to stardom in 2012.

> The early word from Japan is that this change will have no effect on their business relationships with other promotions, but this happened very suddenly from their standpoint. A few months ago, when it appeared this deal was close, those at TNA were talking like they expected when this deal went through that it would lead to New Japan working with them. Really, because it just happened, and nobody knows the future of New Japan on the station, everything is likely going to have to be sorted out.

> In that seven year period, Impact management has completely changed. Nobody from that era is even around today. New Japan’s management has changed as well, although not nearly as drastically. The problems in the past are such that New Japan has told its talent not to work for Impact. Davey Boy Smith Jr., was known and one would believe Michael Elgin also fit into the category of those who were told not to work for Impact. Both have since quit New Japan, although Smith never made a deal with Impact, instead signing with MLW.

> “We are very excited to add these two successful channels to our portfolio,” said Leonard Asper, CEO, Anthem Sports & Entertainment. “Anthem was founded with a mission to deliver compelling, targeted content and experiences to passionate fans globally on the platform of their choice. The music, sports and entertainment communities served by these channels are a natural extension and perfect complement to our existing properties. The addition of AXS TV and HDNet Movies will allow for increased content ownership, digital expansion and even more compelling programming for consumers and our distribution partners.”

> There is expected to be bloodletting as far as office people who worked for the station under the old ownership, which is usually the case in these situations when the new owners put their own people in the key spots. On the first day, Cindy Ronzoni, who headed the public relations, was let go. Ronzoni was always a pleasure to work with and many others who dealt with her over the last few years when it came to both New Japan and WOW expressed the same sentiments to me when the word came out that she was being let go.

> Genichiro Tenryu, 69, a Hall of Famer and genuine legend in pro wrestling, has suffered a loss of motor skills and balance due to a cerebellar infarction, which came from the after effects of a stroke. Tenryu Project, his company, made the announcement on 9/9, that he was diagnosed shortly after being hospitalized in April first for not feeling well. He has been hospitalized a few times since that point. He is currently out of the hospital. In the release sent by his company, he was quoted as saying that he is stable and active and wanted to make his condition public in an effort to raise awareness and give hope to others with similar conditions. A cerebellar infarction involves the posterior cranial fossa, which reduces oxygen delivery to the brain and causes issues with motor control and balance. It is more dangerous than most strokes, with a 23 percent rate of death.

> WWE’s Clash of the Champions on 9/15 at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, currently has 11 matches listed, with the addition this week of a U.S. title match and a subtraction of the King of the Ring tournament final. A.J. Styles defends the U.S. title against Cedric Alexander with Alexander being one of the wrestlers Paul Heyman wants to give a slow push to the top rung. The King of the Ring tournament final, Baron Corbin vs. Chad Gable, was moved to the Raw show the next night in Knoxville.

> The only other change is the Roman Reigns vs. Erick Rowan match was made no DQ. With Daniel Bryan not on the show, this should lead to finding out if the eventual destination, which was the original plan, for Reigns vs. Bryan is set up this week or dropped. Bryan was kept off Smackdown this week. There isn’t a lot else new. The demand seems to be normal. Even though there were only 328 tickets left on the secondary market at press time, a low figure, the get in price is $43, which isn’t high, although it is higher than all but one of the AEW shows that has tickets on sale.

> AAA is running the Hulu Theater on both PPV and iPPV, so it is the rare situation where two PPVs will be going on at the same time. AAA doesn’t figure to do any business on PPV as the show hasn’t been advertised well. Cain Velasquez’s second match isn’t going to mean as much as his first, and the show itself has not been advertised well. Plus, there is no AEW talent on the show, and instead the foreigners are coming from Impact. The PPV starts at 6 p.m. Eastern, the same time as WWE’s pre-show begins. The show has a $44 get in price on the secondary market with about 300 tickets left.

> The update on the 9/15 show is that nothing from Impact has been announced and that Impact did, in fact, keep Killer Kross off the show. Hugo Savinovich and Matt Striker will be announcing the show. It will also air on iPPV through FITE TV, but not in Mexico, where it’s not airing live because it’ll be on TV Azteca shortly. There are some Impact wrestlers who will be added to the show since Impact is helping promote it, but maybe only a few names besides Blanchard, Taya and Cage.

> Regarding Velasquez, everyone is interested in him and he’s been approached by WWE, who he did a one week camp with last year, and AEW, since his debut came at TripleMania with the top AEW stars on the show and Cody teaming with him.

> He spoke to Ariel Helwani and said, about WWE, “We’ve been in talks with them. They’re going pretty good.” Regarding AEW, he said, “I’ve talked to them (WWE). I’ve talked to them a little bit, so I want to talk to him (Cody) a little more. I think they are doing great things. Now that I’ve started watching a little more pro wrestling, I think AEW is doing some really cool things. And they have a good relationship with AAA as well, so they have a lot of guys going to AAA, and back to AEW. And AEW too does a lot of like, lucha stuff, you know. They do a lot of lucha wrestling, which I think is pretty cool. I really like what they’re doing as far as the wrestling aspect of it. I think they have really good athletes coming in, really good showmen. They’re doing good things right now, yeah.”

> He also recently had talks with New Japan. Regarding his debut match, he said, “It was awesome. Before the match, I had no idea what to expect. I was like `this could be really good or this could be really bad.’ It was the first time doing it I was on the big show (the biggest show of the year). I was nervous. I was a little scared. But as soon as I went out there, all that went away. It was fun the whole time I was out there doing it. It was so surreal that we did the whole match and it was faster than I thought it would be. I can’t wait to do it again."

> It looks like WWE, UFC and Bellator will have at least a temporary reprieve from their ratings declines, and other sports like the NFL and NBA will have an illusion of a turnaround late next year. Nielsen has announced that ratings will be changing next year and they will be measuring viewing outside the home, in places like bars, airports and offices as well as other areas.

> Nielsen has been testing out doing ratings of out-of-home viewing and has found that sports events in particular, with sports bars, will increase an average of 11 percent with the added viewership. As a general rule, news shows, often watched in airports and offices, would increase on average about seven percent. For example, this past Super Bowl in February would go from 101 million viewers to 113 million under the new system.

> Straight Up Steve Austin that followed Raw did 841,000 viewers, a drop of 23.3 percent from the prior week’s show with Becky Lynch.

> El Hijo de Mano Negra is apparently on the way in to CMLL.

> The Fenix vs. Kenny Omega AAA title match takes place on 11/17 in Orizaba. They’ve only had one singles match, last year in Poughkeepsie, that was fantastic. Many people live said it was the best match they had ever seen

> Some notes on the TV ratings over the past two weeks in Mexico. For the weekend of 8/31, AAA did 401,000 viewers, CMLL did 223,000, NLL did 215,000 (that’s the Alberto El Patron group), Raw did 156,000 and Smackdown did 184,000

> For the weekend of 9/7, AAA did a 1.77 rating 995,000, CMLL did a 0.72 and 408,000, NLL did a 0.58 and 329,000, Raw did a 0.32 and 178,000 and Smackdown did a 0.43 and 243,000. The TripleMania show in the regular Friday afternoon time slot did a 2.89 rating and 1,630,000 viewers. This was not the live show where they aired Blue Demon Jr. vs. Dr. Wagner Jr., mask vs. hair match, but the regular time for a show that aired The Young Bucks & Omega vs. Pentagon Jr. & Fenix & Laredo Kid, and Velasquez (believed to be the big reason for the high rating) & Cody & Psycho Clown vs. El Texano Jr. & Killer Kross & Black Taurus.

> They debuted three new characters under old names on the 9/8 show in Puebla, which drew 4,900 fans. They debuted a new Bengala, who is the third wrestler to get that name and gimmick. It’s the former Arkangel Divino. A new Octagon Jr. debuted, and that’s Golden Magic with a new mask. That’s notable because Golden Magic is one-third of the trios champions. The third was Abismo Negro Jr., who is the former Eterno. All three were younger guys with a lot of potential. The new gimmicks are only for AAA television and the word we get is they’ll be using their old names on outside dates.

> The idea is that AAA owns the rights to those names, but previous attempts at making a new Octagon Jr., the first of which was Kalisto, didn’t go over well and the most vocal fans don’t like this. AAA’s mentality is that they own the gimmicks, and in the case of Octagon and Abismo Negro, they were iconic characters. The second rendition of Pentagon and La Parka ended up huge stars. But they are the exception. The daughter of Abismo Negro went on Facebook and said the new character is not a relative and she isn’t happy about it, and also claimed it was her father who designed the outfit

> If you believe the interview direction, it appears the Tokyo Dome direction is Kazuchika Okada vs. Kota Ibushi for the IWGP title on the 1/4 Tokyo Dome show, and that the winner would then face the IC champion on 1/5 with the idea you’d end the weekend with the first person in company history to hold both titles at the same time. This has not been announced, but both Ibushi and Tetsuya Naito have been talking about holding both belts at the same time with Ibushi talking about winning the IWGP belt the first night and IC belt the second night with the idea of creating history.

> While this can’t be announced until after the Ibushi vs. KENTA match on 9/16, it looks like Ibushi vs. Evil will take place for the briefcase, likely on the 10/14 King of Pro Wrestling show at Sumo Hall. Ibushi worked the G-1 with a sprained ankle ligament with some bone damage. He was limited in his flying. He was told he needed rehab but wouldn’t need surgery. So of course he worked on it from there, which couldn’t have helped. He said he had to concentrate on flexing the thigh while in his matches to keep the angle from further damage

> They announced an 11/11 show in Los Angeles at the Globe Theater to go with the 11/9 show in San Jose. That’s a Monday night but it’s a small building. That’s a major downsize from Long Beach (5,000 to maybe 600 for the Globe) and I have no idea why New Japan continues to run Los Angeles so frequently while not running most of the rest of North America. San Jose is also the third time in the market, running a 2,500 seat arena. No word on how big a show, but it makes no sense if they’ve got the top talent to run the Globe

> The 9/27 show in Lowell, MA is now close to sold out, while 9/28 at the Hammerstein Ballroom and 9/29 in Philadelphia at the 2300 Arena, were instant sellouts. The talent list is Hiroshi Tanahashi, Kota Ibushi, Tomohiro Ishii, Hirooki Goto, Yoshi-Hashi, Tetsuya Naito, Evil, Sanada, Shingo Takagi, Bushi, Jay White, Tama Tonga, Tanga Loa, KENTA, Rocky Romero, Sho, Yoh, Lance Archer and the New Japan debuts of The Rock & Roll Express. The Rock & Roll Express at this stage on a New Japan show sounds weird, but the story behind it is that Gedo absolutely loves that team from when he was a kid studying American wrestling

>Regarding Velasquez, everyone is interested in him and he’s been approached by WWE, who he did a one week camp with last year, and AEW, since his debut came at TripleMania with the top AEW stars on the show and Cody teaming with him.

I'm sure WWE will make a ridiculous offer, but based off of the Mexico-themed capris and Houston Texans mascot head he was wearing at TripleMania I don't see him going there when they'll just limit his style and presentation. I enjoyed Cain's work that night, but no matter where he lands he's gotta let more personality show.

Netjester!AI.skYnEt - Thu, 12 Sep 2019 08:03:43 EST iLikEToleARnNo.6295435 Reply >>6295434Madyson is literally the entire ashina depths before genichiro, and miyu made a match between gentleman jack and pins him to block them in the hospital and was having a good base for this mega has 52 santo films on it.

> Utami Hayashishita had to drop out of the Stardom Five Star Grand Prix due to a broken thumb, so all the booking has to be redone. She’d have been one of the favorites to win, and these tournaments are booked carefully and now all of her planned wins will be losses and wins for her opponents

> Kazusada Higuchi of DDT, the former sumo who tore the house down with JD Drake over Mania weekend, is out of action with a torn PCL

> Joe Pedecino, who was a television personality with World Championship Wrestling in its early years, as well as the creator of a Saturday night local wrestling block in Atlanta of different regional shows, and then the Pro Wrestling This Week syndicated show with Gordon Solie, suffered a serious stroke in June. He’s been bedridden, but at least he’s been able to return home. Boni Blackstone, his wife of about 30 years and co-host of some of his shows, released a video package of his recovery. At this point he can’t do anything with the right side of his body

> Last week’s Warrior Wrestling show in Chicago Heights, IL, raised $4,000 for the Marian Catholic High scholarship program, another $4,000 for the cheerleading program and $1,600 for the speech and theater program

> Some more notes on the Jim Lyman tournament last week from AAW. Jacob Fatu had a family emergency and pulled out at the last minute. They were able to get Paco (Paco Gonzalez) in from St. Louis at the last minute. That led to a lot of booking changes since Fatu is one of their major stars and would have gone far. Paco was put over Jake Atlas in the first round but lost to Ace Romero the second night. MJF and LAX both finished up. Darby Allin’s last show is 9/28.

> This is the new plight of the indies where you can’t book long-term with top acts, because anyone who is good is getting signed by WWE or AEW. Then you have to redo everything. Plus, while there is a lot of good new talent that will get spots when guys are called up, they don’t have names. The belief is that these groups will have a hard time drawing. For AAW, it’s even worse since Chicago is such a big market that everyone wants to run big shows there all the time and there’s only so many live shows people will attend. AAW had two sellouts, but long-term they can see the future.

> Jordan Oliver will be debuting, Killer Kross debuted (didn’t wrestle, just cut promos with Scarlett Bordeaux as an act together) and will be pushed hard and David Starr is returning. Josh Alexander, who won the tournament, woke up the day of the finals on 8/30 with a 104 degree fever. He couldn’t get out of bed. He tried sleeping until 3 p.m. and dragged himself onto the van to get to the show. Knowing he had to work three matches, and was winning, he knew if he told anyone they’d send him to the hospital. So he told nobody about it until after he won the tournament. He may have had food poisoning. But in between matches he slept on the dressing room floor with an ice bag on his head. He said that he never felt bad once his music hit.

> ODB’s food truck burned down. She woke up and found it was on fire on 9/8. She would bring her food truck to pro wrestling shows in the Midwest. Not sure if she got that idea from Japan, but there is a retired woman wrestler who brings her food truck to the Stardom shows in Tokyo.

> MLW will also be doing a TV taping on 11/9 at Gilt Night Club in Orlando, the building they started this incarnation of the promotion in. The taping will be a Saturday afternoon at 4 p.m., so they’ll be done by 7 p.m. and avoiding competing with the AEW Full Gear PPV

> The Impact Twitch viewership this week for TV was under 3,500 and less than 3,200 for the main event where LAX put up their careers against the tag titles held by Josh Alexander & Ethan Fox

> Daga and Johnny Swinger, who have both signed contracts here, started as regulars at the Las Vegas tapings. Swinger, 44, is friends with Scott D’Amore. He worked here through 2013 and was around the Canadian indie scene some in recent years.

> Ken Shamrock will be working past Bound for Glory

> Rob Van Dam keeps noting how happy he is after signing a deal where he gets 2.5 times per match what he got on his previous deal with the company.

> Joey Ryan was backstage at the shows and they were filming stuff with him. We did hear from indie groups who said Ryan was cutting back on dates due to signing with Impact. But one of the benefits of working Impact is that you will be on TV if/when they get the deal they are hoping for, and you can still work indies, unless it’s WWE, AEW and ROH

> There was some complaining regarding the taping the Brian Cage wedding angle. It was an early morning shoot. Nobody had breakfast and they taped more than three hours with no water, coffee or food. People were more joking than complaining as it went on, about not having food and water. Ethan Page said something about how it would be nice to have something to drink, and Jimmy Jacobs, who is a producer, snapped in front of everyone and cut a promo about guys complaining and that if they didn’t like it they didn’t need to be there, but then stopped himself and realized he wasn’t coming off well and tried to walk it back

> Chris Jericho vs. Cody for the AEW title is the main event for the 11/9 Full Gear show, joining Kenny Omega vs. Jon Moxley as the key matches, and probably a tag team title match in some form coming off the tournament. Pac vs. Adam Page is also likely on the show and one would expect tag title and women’s title matches coming off upcoming television bouts. They also noted on Road To that Cody vs. Sammy Guevara will be the first match on the debut TNT show on 10/2, so it’s the new Liger vs. Pillman (the first match ever on TNT when Nitro debuted). If Cody loses, he’s out of the title match. Cody also mentioned that if Jericho was to lose a match in Philadelphia on 10/16, he could be out of the match a well, although that match hasn’t been announced yet

> As far as business goes, the PPV, updated, is going to fall a little under what Double or Nothing did. What’s notable is the U.S. was down overall and somewhat significantly, while the U.K. was up, and outside the U.S./U.K. was down. Internally because the decline wasn’t big, they are blaming it on losing the Omega vs. Moxley match which was considered going in as the money match on the show. It’s hard to give the value of the one hour hype show. The U.S. was down, even with the show, but you don’t know if it would have been down more without it. The cable/sat drop from May is not minor, but aside from that, every other category was pretty much stable.

> I think college football opening weekend hurt a little as well, but that will be the case every year since the plan is Labor Day Saturday from the Sears Center as tradition. Things changed since last week. U.S. cable & satellite was down, as of those reported by 9/9, it was at about 28,700. Of that 28,700, about 13,200 purchased both All Out and Double or Nothing and about 15,500 did not. It should be noted that every report from both cable and BR has been consistent at 46 percent were repeats from DON. If anything, that’s crazy stats when the number is identical across the board, both first day, replay, streaming and cable.

> B/R Live looks to end up even with DON, not up as early numbers looked, so that’s around 37,000. FITE, which handled the streaming internationally, ended up being up due to the U.K. Outside the U.K. it was down, but we’re told the final number is looking less than 20,000. ITV Box Office, which is U.K. television, was also up, so that’s over 15,000. We were told it was a lot easier to purchase this show through ITV Box Office, as it was push a button as opposed to going through steps. So we’re looking at in the range of 101,000, although I’ve been given indications the total number may end up shy of that.

> Double or Nothing was around 109,000 to 111,000. If you compare it to All In, and throw out the ITV number since that’s not a fair comparison with those added in for this show, it’s up 40 percent year-to-year and most companies use year-to-year comparisons for shows. As for why it would be up in the U.K. and down the rest of the world, it’s been theorized that Double of Nothing may have been hurt by being on a holiday weekend or that the increase may be because of Pac being in a prominent position on the show, whereas DON had nobody prominent from the U.K. on it. I don’t sense Pac being strong enough, but in Japan, they’ve credited the strong performance the last few months of NJPW World in the U.K. to Will Ospreay.

> It may also be the U.S. was only down due to first week of college football, but the drop in cable/sat was far more than one would think. It’s probably that there was more must-see for the first show of the new promotion, and the DON numbers were so much higher than expected, and like everything, now things are coming back to reality levels. The long run, there is still the question of if the WWE Network and its pricing putting the $9.99 value on WrestleMania and Rumble will make it hard to get people to spend $50 on quarterly PPV shows. So far that hasn’t been the case, given even these numbers are unprecedented for a pro wrestling show promoted without television. But this could be the base that will still do so and new fans won’t.

> The 11/9 show numbers are far more important because it’s just over two months, but it’ll have five TV shows to promote it. Really all numbers right now are lame duck numbers because the future level of the company depends all on the value of television on a top-ten station in 2019 to increase the fan base. Nobody but WWE has had that in this country since 2001. If the promotion ends up being bad, TNT won’t help. WCW was on TBS, and later TBS and TNT, and when they were bad, they didn’t draw. When they were good, they did. But being on TNT, even though TNT is in more homes now than the Monday Night Wars years (87 million to 75-80 million then), the value of being on television is not nearly what it once was as far as the ability to make new fans

> As far as the crossover goes, of the people who purchase SummerSlam on PPV, so these are wrestling fans who are still spending money on WWE PPV, only 2.2 percent (less than 500 of 22,500) bought All Out, so the crossover in that regard remains small and SummerSlam isn’t a WWE minor show. 12.6 percent of the small audience (about 2,200) that bought Impact’s last PPV bought All Out. 13.7 percent of the small audience (3,450) that bought ROH Best in the World bought All Out

> Right now the plan is for the next television show on TNT to be a preview show for the Washington, DC opener, which would air on 10/1. That hasn’t been announced but has been scheduled for some time, with the idea of running at 8 p.m. on the first Tuesday that Smackdown isn’t on. Tuesday Night Dynamite, which AEW trademarked, was obviously based on the idea of starting in the current Smackdown time slot the first week the show moves to Friday, but that didn’t work for TNT due to NBA commitments

> They put tickets on sale for both the 11/6 show in Charlotte and the 11/9 show in Baltimore on 9/6. Charlotte had 2,500 tickets sold in the first hour and Baltimore had 4,500, so they were off to decent starts, but it’s no longer instant sellouts, even for PPVs. Baltimore after the first day was 65 percent capacity according to someone in the ticketing business, so it was slightly ahead of what last week’s Raw ended up doing in the same building. They’ve been opening up more sections as they are doing the WWE pattern of selling in front of the camera first and those tickets are all sold. There are about 920 tickets on Stubhub, which is lower than usual, with a $30 price to get in, so the demand is nothing special.

> Charlotte has a $48 get in price, but DC at $6.12 and Philadelphia at $11 are not having a secondary market demand. The other show have normal demand. Charlotte probably won’t end up near what WWE will do in the same market (different building) for Clash this weekend. So right now it looks like a WWE PPV beats an AEW TV, and an AEW PPV beats a WWE TV, that an AEW TV and Raw are close and a WWE big four is ahead of AEW Baltimore although not close to the demand of Chicago, but I think Chicago was the last of the outliers and now it’s normal. Baltimore is also the second time in five weeks for AEW in the same market with 10/2 in DC, which will end up at about 14,000, and WWE was just in the same arena in Baltimore last week

> The 11/13 TV will be at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium, which should be set up for about 7,000 to 7,500

> Jon Moxley vs. Shawn Spears was announced for the 10/9 tapings in Boston

> Cody came under fire from Outsports regarding the “puto” chant he was involved with at TripleMania. It wouldn’t have been an issue most likely except AEW put it on this past week’s Road To show. Puto is a derogatory chant that has been part of Mexican and Mexican American sports forever. That doesn’t make it right. Technically it means male prostitute, but at times it has been used as a gay slur. After their TripleMania match, Psycho Clown led the crown in chanting that at their opponents, as he does all the time. It’s considered part of AAA. That’s not a defense of it now because it used to be common at sports events like soccer in Mexico and I’ve heard that chant for decades in the U.S. at Mexican sports. But it’s a different time. Soccer has cracked down heavily on it so it is changing in that culture.

> In Mexico, there has been no heat on AAA and it being chanted at wrestling is not an issue, and Psycho is probably the most popular of the current generation wrestlers in Mexico. After Psycho did it, Cain Velasquez joined in, as did Cody. It’s highly unlikely Cody even realized what it was he was doing. Velasquez would have known, being Hispanic and I’d say just living in San Jose you would know, but it’s also part of Mexican wrestling. AEW responded to the article saying, “Cody joined his teammates at AAA TripleMania for what he understood to be their post-match tradition in Mexico and was unaware of any negative connotations. Certainly the last thing Cody would want to do is hurt of offend anyone, anywhere.” At All Out, and this was prior to this being a controversy, Pentagon Jr. said the word during the ladder match. I’d be pretty much certain AEW from this point would ban that word and that the wrestlers won’t join in fans chants when they perform in AA

> The Young Bucks said that the All Out match will be their last Esculera de la Muerte match, saying they learned their lesson. They noted that a week later, they were both still hurting and that their mom was sick. Matt said that his wife, Dana, said that was the worst thing they ever put her through. Kenny Omega on BTE was doing a gimmick where he’s gone nuts, playing a total fake babyface, due to losing to Pac, and was saying how he didn’t care

> Regarding the stolen championship belt, Frank Price of Tallahassee was the one who brought the belt to police after finding it on 9/1, the day Jericho said it was stolen. Price and his wife were driving home near an area close to the airport and saw a velvet bag in the middle of a turn lane. The bag was marked up. They picked it up and then drove home. It wasn’t until he got home that he opened the bag and saw what it was. After some research, he and his wife figured that they had found somebody’s replica belt but knew it was for AEW given the large “AEW”on the plate.

> Price noted that when they found it, there was nothing in the news about the stolen belt, a that story didn’t come up until a few days later. Price then figured it was something owned by a kid who lot it, and put it in the Lost & Found listings for Craigslist in Tallahassee. He wrote that he found a pro wrestling belt on Highway 20 Sunday afternoon and texted photos of the belt. He didn’t get any response until two days later, after the local Tallahassee Democrat wrote an article on Jericho’s belt being stolen. But he didn’t see any of his messages until 9/4. When he realized he’d found the belt, he called the Tallahassee police and was told to bring it in

> Kenny Omega is working a match on 9/14 in Taiwan, a mixed tag teaming with Riho against Michael Nakazawa & Yuka Sakazaki

> For those asking about live events in Southern California with so much on the East Coast, we’re told there definitely won’t be a show in 2019 since the schedule is pretty much done but there will be shows in 2020

> There’s still nothing new on Canadian television. We do know there have been talks with TSN. TSN is second to Rogers Sportsnet (it used to be first, but things have changed), which is the sports channel with WWE. TSN has five different channels so one would think they’d be able to find something live. TSN, which aired WWE for a long time, did have a history of not wanting wrestling. In the late 90s, there was a guy in charge who wanted it off because he thought wrestling was too low-brow, but in that period when he saw the ratings, he realized he couldn’t get rid of it. But later, after ratings went down significantly, the Edge/Lita live sex thing was the key because after that the decision was made that WWE wouldn’t be renewed, and they went to Rogers.

> Both WWE and AEW, and perhaps even MMA groups may have to reclassify their performers when they come to California in legislation that, if it passes there, may lead to other states following suit. Assembly Bill 5 was passed on 9/10 in the California State Senate, that is expected to pass through the State Assembly, and Gov. Gavin Newsom will sign it and put it into law on 1/1, redefining the employee vs. independent contractor law. The bill states that workers must be designated as employees, as opposed to independent contractors, if the company they work for exerts control over how they perform their tasks or if their work is part of the company’s regular daily business.

> Pro wrestling likely fits into the former, but there is no arguing it fits into the latter, which would make wrestlers employees if they perform in California. Labor Groups are pushing for similar legislation in New York, and other states would be expected to follow. Because live touring is less important, it is not inconceivable that WWE and/or AEW would simply avoid running in California to avoid the law, but if New York and other states follow suit, that becomes far more difficult

> There have been changes made for 2020 on the major weekends. We don’t know if it will be this way for SummerSlam, but the four straight nights in the same building is out for Royal Rumble. In addition, the NXT schedule for Takeovers are changing. The original plans for Houston were three shows at the Toyota Center and Rumble at Minute Maid Park, the home of the Houston Astros. However, the plans have changed as Smackdown will now be on 1/24 in Dallas. The 1/25 show will be called Worlds Collide. That name has been used in the past for show that consisted of wrestlers from NXT, NXT U.K., 205 Live and the main roster in unique matches that normally aren’t done.

> But I can’t see booking the Toyota Center for cold matches, so they’d have to be bouts pushed in some form on television. Part of the issue is the Toyota Center not being able to commit to all four dates, and they are down to one date. But the NXT move is obviously something very different. The Rumble remains at the stadium. Raw will be in San Antonio. Right now the plan is for Takeovers not to be the same weekend as the big shows and WWE has said that the new Takeover schedule will be out soon. It will be interesting to see if Vince follows his late 1980s playbook and puts the Takeover shows on the network to go head-to-head with AEW PPVs, that come with a $50 price tag

> Paul Levesque in Newsweek indicated the current plans look to be expanded from five to six Takeovers per year now that they have TV, and two U.K. Takeovers per year

> Regarding what we’ve reported about less cross-pollination between Raw and Smackdown the separate rosters, he pretty much confirmed that. “Yeah I think you'll see that RAW will become very much distinctly its own brand as well as Smackdown on Fox. And NXT will be its own. The ability, as time moves on, for people to move from RAW to SmackDown, and NXT to RAW or SmackDown, but also RAW or SmackDown to NXT. NXT UK will sit under that NXT banner as well, probably 205 too breathing some life into it a little bit. That creates three distinct brands that talent, over the course of their career - which hopefully is long - where they can migrate from one to the other and be reinvigorated and have fresh starts and have longer, more meaningful and lucrative careers while staying within the same company.”

> It also looks like the cruiserweight division may be on the NXT show. “You'll start to see 205 begin to. I think it always existed as an island onto itself, a little bit, and it's become lost in this limbo. You'll begin to see it move more towards the NXT banner and the talent there. We have a lot of talent. For them to begin to compete either open against anyone or in the cruiserweight division, but have that title sit under the NXT brand is more meaningful. It creates more opportunities for more people.

> Regarding the future of 205 Live, the word we were given is that there are many different options being discussed

> With the kind of live attendance they are doing and the money they get from television, WWE really needs to revamp the touring system. It’s a tough deal. First, a lot of the wrestlers really enjoy house shows because they are less restrictive. But it is the fatigue from the travel and doing so many that results in the high injury rate, and ultimately shortens careers. Also, it is very good for younger talent to work as many shows as possible because everyone says you can only learn so much in the gym and you really learn doing live events in front of fans, working with veterans. And WWE is way better at allowing veterans, whether they be Orton, Mysterio, Reigns, Styles, Bryan, Miz, or others, a lessened schedule due to age, injuries or other projects.

> It’s just a question of how long they can increase prices to make up for smaller crowds and maintain break-even. And really, for the younger talent, running shows that are at a slight loss to help with experience, given the overall profit level, is not a bad thing. Maybe cutting back from four to three shows per week on tour is the answer. But doing something the way it’s always been done when the economics of the business are so different no longer makes sense. They should take a step back, talk with talent bout what is optimum, use the house shows as much to give time for the younger acts although you do need real main events with stars or people will in time skip shows completely even more than they already do

> Lynch filmed three Sports Center commercials. They were all funny, especially the one where she was ordering a drink at a restaurant and the person at the counter asked her name and she went off on someone not knowing who she is, saying she main evented WrestleMania and came out as champ champ and revolutionized the sport

> Matt Riddle vs. Killian Dain in a street fight has been announced for the 9/18 first NXT show on USA. The first four shows, through 10/9, are now sold out, although that is only 400 seats. All the remaining shows through 12/18 are also no sale

> Even though there is a dispute given Ric Flair filed a trademark on “The Man,” since WWE has used the phrase for Lynch, Flair is still booked for the 10/4 first FOX show in Los Angeles. Flair’s contention is that he trademarked “To Be the Man,” so feels that’s part of it. WWE contends differently. In a funny story, Undertaker was on ESPN, and whether he knows about this or not, when on, talked about how Ric Flair is “The man.

> Ric Flair also got an endorsement deal with Adidas and has done commercials for The Fall Out Tour, a concert tour with Wheezer, Green Day and the Fall Out Boys. He’s basically doing a 1980s Flair promo with the kiss stealing, wheeling dealing, limousine riding, except building up a concert instead of a wrestling match

> Even though he’s been there for some time, and was part of the last class that started weeks ago, WWE didn’t announce Jorge Alcantar as being signed. Alcantar, better known as King Cuerno in Lucha Underground and El Hijo del Fantasma in Mexico, is using the name Jorge Bally

> Regarding McIntyre, he underwent surgery minor surgery on recently and is about ready to return. The surgery was not muscle or bone related. He was sick for a few weeks and just kept it to himself and working. He was sick for several weeks. On 8/26, the day he did the King of the Ring match with Ricochet, he could barely get out of bed. But he kept it to himself and just figured he was run down and had the flu and would work through it. He went to Mexico last week on a promotional tour and when he got back, the company told him to see a doctor. The doctor diagnosed him and ordered him in surgery three hours later. He’s ready to go right about now but was not cleared as of press time, but it should be fairly soon

> Rousey has been hired as the Executive Producer for a new ESPN+ seven episode series called “Why We Fight.” It’s a documentary exploring personal stories about world class athletes in various combat sports. Cat Zingano will host the show. That’s what led to Zingano being cut from UFC as she had noted they had wanted her to fight but she was working on a project that she wasn’t going to give up

> Ricochet, the boyfriend of Kacy Catanzaro, talked to Sports Illustrated about her, basically saying what we reported in last week’s issue that “She’s still with the company. She’s not retired at all and she’s not injured. It’s a tough sport and we’re all hurting, but there is nothing wrong with her.” But he wouldn’t say outright she’s coming back either. “I don’t know. She’s very family-oriented and she wants kids, so she doesn’t know if being on the road so much is for her. For me, I’m already too deep. I’m on the road all the time. She loves wrestling and she loves it here, and she’s so good at it, so it’s a very tough decision for her.”

> When the SE Scoops story that she quit came out, it wasn’t completely accurate in the sense they hadn’t officially quit, but there was smoke to the fire. When I checked I was told nothing official had happened, but there were absolutely people around who were talking about it like she had already quit, and that’s where the story broke. For whatever reason, WWE chose not to officially clarify it, maybe because they did with Stacey Ervin, saying he hadn’t quit when the first stories came out he was quitting, and then he actually did quit and they knew she was up in the air

> New WWE announcing hires are McKenzie Mitchell, who worked with Impact as a backstage interviewer until leaving in January; Matt Camp, who was the lead announcer for Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore promotion; and Dio Madden, a former NFL player whose real name is Brennan Williams, who had been wrestling in NXT and this past week replaced Nigel McGuinness on 205 Live. McGuinness at this point is going exclusive to NXT since it’s now a two hour show on USA. Expect main roster announcer changes and shakeups sooner if not later. The general rule is changes are made when they start on a new station but I’m not sure what the timing is for changes past that Corey Graves is going to be doing only one of the two shows as things stand right now

> Lynch & Rollins share the cover of the new issue of Muscle & Fitness magazine. WWE gets lots of covers and coverage because the company, in particular Paul Levesque and Stephanie McMahon, have a great relationship with the magazine

> Howard Finkel, 69, who is confined to a wheelchair after health issues, was backstage at Madison Square Garden and talent saw him for the first time since I believe Mania weekend when he was around

> The Jericho belt story brings up similar stolen belt stories with Bruno Sammartino (WWWF) and Verne Gagne (AWA). Sammartino’s WWWF title belt was stolen after the September 27, 1965, match with Tarzan Tyler at Madison Square Garden. He had put the belt in a locked car as he, Arnold Skaaland and a few others went out for dinner after the show. The car was broken into. It got local TV coverage the next morning and local newspaper coverage. They brought it up on television and Sammartino was given a new belt. I don’t completely recall the Gagne story, but my best memory was that it was stolen at the arena in Decatur, IL, around 1976

> WWE filed trademarks for the term Yowie Wowie, which I’ve heard chanted at a few non-WWE shows of late so that may be a big indie thing going forward, as well as for Firefly Funhouse, Legit Boss and Monster Among Men

> As of last week, Dana Brooke vs. Sarah Logan on Main Event has seen Brooke winning four of seven matches that have been held in the last 12 weeks. This past week they were a tag team and then couldn’t get along, so in theory that should mean more matches

> Shane McMahon was out last week doing jury duty

> NXT referee Eddie Orengo was moved up to the main roster this past week on the Raw brand

> Rollins just found out this past week that he has both a brother and a sister that he never knew about

> Elias suffered an ankle injury. On TV they said it was a broken ankle but we don’t have word as to the actual severity of the injury. This caused them to have to change the plans for 9/10 since Gable vs. Elias was scheduled as the King of the Ring semifinal on the show

> The market as a whole rebounded this past week. WWE was part of it, slightly up to $71.92 per share and ending with a $5.682 billion market value

> If you believe the interview direction, it appears the Tokyo Dome direction is Kazuchika Okada vs. Kota Ibushi for the IWGP title on the 1/4 Tokyo Dome show, and that the winner would then face the IC champion on 1/5 with the idea you’d end the weekend with the first person in company history to hold both titles at the same time. This has not been announced, but both Ibushi and Tetsuya Naito have been talking about holding both belts at the same time with Ibushi talking about winning the IWGP belt the first night and IC belt the second night with the idea of creating history.

>It’s just a question of how long they can increase prices to make up for smaller crowds and maintain break-even>"Vince, what are we going to do about our dwindling crowds?">"RAISE PRICES, DAMNIT!">people who are on the verge of quitting WWE or are only there because of their kids finally quit

P.N. News - Thu, 12 Sep 2019 12:25:09 EST GXHNtkkwNo.6295494 Reply >>6295487it was meant as a slight against the music acts that they are pop because they were never alt and history because they are old

>Ric Flair also got an endorsement deal with Adidas and has done commercials for The Fall Out Tour, a concert tour with Wheezer, Green Day and the Fall Out Boys. He’s basically doing a 1980s Flair promo with the kiss stealing, wheeling dealing, limousine riding, except building up a concert instead of a wrestling match>The Fall Out Tour>Wheezer>the Fall Out Boys

>WWE continues to trademark the ring names for WWE NXT Superstars. They filed to trademark the following names on September 4 and September 5: The Forgotten Sons, Marina Shafir, Jessamyn Duke, Taynara, Vanessa Borne, Xia Li, Dakota Kai.>They also filed for "Lo Shirai" but it appears that this is a typo for Io Shirai.

CRAPCOM!SNGayGTIcE - Thu, 12 Sep 2019 22:39:39 EST oBoI/UZ6No.6295736 Reply >>6295677"wheezer" could at least be a matter of auto-correct, but there's no good excuse for getting the name of that third terrible band wrong